VON PAPEN CAUGHT

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25178, 16 April 1945, Page 5

VON PAPEN CAUGHT

HIDING IK KU.HR IDENTITY ADMITTED WILY GERMAN PERSONALITY (Reed. 9.15 p.m.) LONDON, April 15 Franz von Papen, ex-Reich Chancellor, one-time Ambassador to lurkey, and the Nazis' wiliest negotiator, was captured last Wednesday by men of an American glider regiment while hiding in his son-in-law's hunting lodge at Stockhausen, in the Ruhr pocket. \ on Papen, who also fell into Allied hands in the last war, lias been officially identified. The capture of his son, Lieutenant Frank von Papen, led to his discovery. When a patrol reached the hunting lodge it found the son-in-law outside with a gun. Von Papen was inside eating his dinner. He admitted his identity when confronted with a photograph. Von Papen said to his captors: "1 cannot imagine what you Americans want with a man aged 67." As he was Jed away, dressed in Tyrolean costume, he added: "I wish this war were over." An American sergeant replied: "So do 1.1,000,000 other guys." Renter's political correspondent, describing von Papen as the man behind some of the most notorious incidents in German history in the past 25 years, says he is alleged to have arranged the historic meeting in the Krupp villa at lissen between Hitler and leaders of the German heavy industry, which led in 1933 to complete Nazi control of the Reich. Von Papen, when German Chancellor in 1932, practically paved the way for Hitler to be Chancellor. He was ViceChancellor in the first Hitler Cabinet. He has been called the greatest mischief-maker of the century. SABOTEUR AND SPY VON PAPEN'S CAREER AIDED NAZIS TO POWER Arch-saboteur, spy-master and diplomat, Franz von Papen has fallen a second time into the hands of his country's enemies. The first time was in 1916, after he had been expelled from the United States for organising widespread attempts to blow up munition plants and sink ships taking war materials to the Allies. Von Papen is not a Nazi, but it has been said that no one did more than he to help the Nazis to power, and ever since then he has served them well in the course of a career devoted largely to mischief. He is the son of a well-to-do Catholic industrial family in the Saar Territory. After some years as an officer of Uhlans he was appointed in 1914 military attache to the Legation at Washington and was also accredited to M exico. Hi* job was to spread a network of spies over the country and organise sabotage in war industries

After a series of disasters, including the sinking of ships by delayed-action incendiary bombs, British intelligence got possession of a wireless code used by him and he was expelled. His messages and papers enabled the ramifications >of his work to be fully explored. Returning to the army, von Papen was sent to the Western Front for a while and was then attached to the Turkish Army in Palestine for the purpose of fomenting trouble among the Arabs and in Egypt. Allenby's advance compelled him to flee suddenly from Jerusalem in his pyjamas, and again a revealing col'/o-ction of papers fell into British hands. About six months before the present war he was appointed German Ambassador to Turkey, where he directed another huge spy organisation and did a certain amount for his country's cause, but not (so much as Hitler had hoped. His active career ended on the severance of diplomatic relations last August GIRL SPY CAUGHT 12 YEARS IN PRISON (Reed 6.30 p.m.) LONDON, April 14 A British military court has sentenced a 19-year-old girl spy to 12 years' penal servitude. She is Lilian Annie Smith, who has a British father and Dutch mother. She was born at the Hague, it is stated that the girl crossed the British lines last November and shortly afterward front-line troops detained her. She had been sent as an agent

lor the German intelligence service on an espionage mission, to obtain political and economic information.